News From Nowhere

Warp; 2013

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Say what you like about Darkstar's shapeshift from forward-facing production crew to pillowy dreampop dudes, but it's probably not a move they made for cred points. After all, back when they were featured players on Kode9's Hyperdub label, the London-based duo of James Young and Aiden Whalley won all sorts of looks for their wonky but thoughtfully-crafted strain of dubstep. The subsequent addition of vocalist James Buttery appeared to position Darkstar at the forefront of a generation of dance acts looking to marry vocals and textured dance sounds in a novel and original way. The ensuing "Aidy's Girl is a Computer" seemed like a bellwether-- for a good six months, it felt like Darkstar was the thinking person's [insert your favorite mildly popular dubstep act from 2009 here]-- on-paper darlings with just the right amount of heat, clearly about to have a moment.

But a funny thing happened on the way to that moment; Darkstar got soft. Not soft soppy-- although this album's detractors might argue that, too-- but soft sonically. Even with Buttery in the fold, a major throughline of 2010's North was Darkstar's constant fascination with how different drum patterns locked together-- a big part of the fun was how they rationalized that into vocalist-led song structures. News From Nowhere is so unbothered by rhythmic invention that it might as well be from a different band. The keening falsettos, new age pads, and chiming bell sounds that signal opener "Light Body Clock Starter" establish an instructive new message that never really fades away: these guys are crooners now, less 2-step than "2 become 1".

You know what, though? This new hairdo doesn't look half bad. Setting aside the occasional meandering instrumental break, there are enough genuinely charming and well-crafted songs here that you can sort of understand what they're aiming at. Sure, by embracing more established pop and indie song structures, Darkstar risk opening themselves up to a world of new comparisons, but to their credit, they also seem to relish the moments when they catch themselves wearing another band's clothes. One of the album's best tracks, "A Day's Pay For a Day's Work" features a melody line that sounds like it could have lifted straight out of Grizzly Bear's playbook. Elsewhere, the hiccuping acoustics, low baritone and pneumatic rhythm section of "Armonica" constitutes a pretty convincing Matthew Dear callback. And then there's "Amplified Ease", a studiously shambolic and very likable sing-song which, as an aside, I'm pretty sure is scientifically traceable to Animal Collective.

It's fun to think about Darkstar's raw materials and what they might do with them one day, but nobody's going to come away from News From Nowhere feeling like they've successfully cultivated their own unique universe. Perhaps in the grand scheme of things, this might end up being thought of as a necessary transition album that bridges some new future territory for them. But even as a functional exercise in sensitive songs and electronic pastels, you could do much worse.